Peabody bountiful brunch a product of labor by a bunch

The Peabody puts on a big show at Thanksgiving, serving a brunch that includes thousands of pounds and turkey and dressing and more than 6,000 pastries, as well as dinners in both restaurants. It also kicks off the holiday season with the installation of the big gingerbread village and the complete decorating of the lobby and the hotel's exterior. Konrad (CQ) Spitzbart, Executive Pastry Chef adds final touches to his masterpiece.

November 20, 2012 — The Peabody puts on a big show at Thanksgiving, serving a brunch that includes thousands of pounds and turkey and dressing and more than 6,000 pastries, as well as dinners in both restaurants. It also kicks off the holiday season with the installation of the big gingerbread village and the complete decorating of the lobby and the hotel's exterior. Detail of a snowman on the gingerbread village. (Mike Maple/The Commercial Appeal)

For 25 years, Joe Taylor has eaten Thanksgiving brunch at The Peabody hotel. But last year, he was in Orlando with his family for a Walt Disney World trip.

So he went to The Peabody — the one in Orlando.

"It (the brunch) was even bigger than the one they have here," said Taylor, of Newport, Ark. "I was shocked."

But this is where the tradition started for Taylor, and he'll be there with his wife and three children on Thursday. So will close to 1,500 others throughout the day and night, making it the busiest day of the year for food service at the hotel. It's considered a legacy event, one that's been going on so long that no one at The Peabodycan say when it began.

It's also the weekend when the lobby puts on its holiday shine, from the multiple Christmas trees — the official lighting is always the day after Thanksgiving — to yards and yards of garland and a spectacular gingerbread display.

This year's creation theme is "Winter Wonderland," an alpine village complete with homes, a hotel, a working train, trees, snow — even a butcher shop.

Pastry chef Konrad Spitzbart and his staff began preparing in September and on Tuesday moved the room-size creation from the kitchen to the lobby.

Some store-bought items are used. Shredded wheat makes hay bales, Triscuits are used for thatched roofs, cinnamon sticks are stacked logs, and candies such as peppermints and M&M's provide pops of color on the houses. But most everything else is made in-house.

It takes about 300 pounds of gingerbread, held together by cement made of icing, to make this village. The icing is also used to make drifts of snow; in all, it took about 250 pounds of powdered sugar.

It takes more than double that — 550 pounds — of potatoes to feed the Thanksgiving crowd the main meal, which is brunch served on the mezzanine.

There's the stuffing. "We do about 16 full sheet pans of cornbread, maybe 25 loaves of bread, a case of celery, 100 pounds of onions," said executive chef Andreas Kisler.

"There is no machine. I don't allow any of that. We have two people over here who would beat me up if their hands weren't hurting so bad."

A few more numbers: 70 pounds of cranberries, 70 gallons of orange juice, 150 bottles of Champagne, more than 300 pounds of meat other than turkey, and 180 turkeys.

The pastry buffet is 32 feet long and will be replenished with more than 6,000 servings of sweets ranging from pecan pies and sweet potato pies to creme brûlée.

Kisler shakes his head when tallying up the work hours (more than 400 on Wednesday and Thursday, not including serving staff or the kitchen staff of Chez Philippe and Capriccio).

But all that work is productive, and working two months on the gingerbread village bore an unexpected fruit for Spitzbart:

"We actually came up for the theme for next year," he said. "We're going to do Whoville. The Grinch."